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Peter Thiel's Apocalyptic Worldview Is a Dangerous Fantasy

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Re: Peter Thiel's Apocalyptic Worldview Is a Dangerous Fantasy

#141

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

philipallstar wrote: post #70
shevy-java wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He 100% uses this for profit. Why does he not give away his money? It is profit. The craziness is just the cover for it.

> He 100% uses this for profit. Why does he not give away his money? You haven't given away your money. Does that mean everything you do (including writing the above comment) is for profit?

Everything else aside, this is a really stupid comparison. A multi-billionaire giving away even 99% of their billions of dollars is not the same as any normal person giving away a substantially smaller percentage of their money. Thiel can give away 99% of his money and would still have hundreds of millions of dollars left, which is already quite literally more money than any normal person can spend in their entire lifetime. Even at only 3% interest, he would get more interest money alone per year than the income of almost anyone on the planet.

Re: Peter Thiel's Apocalyptic Worldview Is a Dangerous Fantasy

#142

Post by yoyohello13 »

ryandvm wrote: post #72
jmathai wrote: post #13

Maybe slightly off topic to the article, but I don't really care what Peter Thiel has to say. I do think we need to collectively think about how to not give these people a microphone. It's one thing to have concentrated wealth. It's a very different thing to have concentrated wealth and people's attention. I think that's a much more interesting discussion :).

On the other hand, nothing is quite as liberating as finding out that being batshit insane doesn't automatically disqualify you from tremendous economic success.

I find it kind of terrifying, since the US culture tightly couples economic success with moral superiority.

Re: Peter Thiel's Apocalyptic Worldview Is a Dangerous Fantasy

#143

Post by lenkite »

fastball wrote: post #33
throw310822 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the article's second sentence: "Thiel’s lurid, apocalyptic view of world politics may be ludicrous or even deranged, but his wealth and power mean that we can’t afford to ignore it."

Power might be hard to ignore, but wealth you literally just can.

How does a politician or his opponent ignore millions of dollars donated to political campaigns ?

Re: Peter Thiel's Apocalyptic Worldview Is a Dangerous Fantasy

#144

Post by lenkite »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #135
SimianSci wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealth is allowing people to buy consent for their worldviews these days. this is an incredibly naiive take.

How does one buy consent for a worldview? Buying and selling require two parties - the party who is selling their viewpoint to the highest bidder isn't blameless.

The party who accepts the bid generally wins the election.

Re: Peter Thiel's Apocalyptic Worldview Is a Dangerous Fantasy

#145

Post by SimianSci »

cbb330 wrote: post #117
galleywest200 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don’t like Thiel, out-argue him or ignore him Kind of hard to do this when he has so much money to buy influence anywhere. An example is how the current vice president of the United States is a protege of the guy.

Yeah sure, Thiel’s money helped put his protégé Vance in the VP chair, he has real influence, no denying it. But scroll this comment section for any critique of Thiel and you’ll see the pattern: his wealth gets attacked, his actual ideas almost never do. Take the “Antichrist Thesis” everyone mocks. It’s Rene Girard-speak for centralized, charismatic authoritarianism that weaponizes morality and scapegoating to grab p…

I see multiple comments regarding his actual views. Its been pointed out multiple times that hes a believer in a dark-enlightenment, where democracy has run its course and the power should be taken from ordinary people and centralized to the aristocratic elite such as himself.

He uses alot of coded language, hence why he is often called a Crypto Fascist (Crypto as in encrypted language, not cryptocurrency) To anyone knowledgeable enough to own a basic mental cypher, they can decode fascist and monarchist language. He's very clearly a selfish person in the business of consolidating his own power over others to fulfill his outlandish fantasies.

He's deffinately not the only person in the world holding these sorts of views, there is an overabundance of sociopathic elites in the world. But Thiel is able to operate on an influence level beyond that of most sociopaths and thus his wealth is one of the most pressing issues regarding his person. This particular nutjob being far less powerful and wealthy, would preserve alot of our social order.

Re: Peter Thiel's Apocalyptic Worldview Is a Dangerous Fantasy

#146

Post by lowkey_ »

numbers_guy wrote: post #88
qwerpy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When one side of crazies goes after a different side of crazies, “both sides are crazy” is an appropriate way to look at it.

There is obviously a huge difference between fascist-aspiring westerners and communist-aspiring westerners. It's disingenuous to pretend otherwise. Tankies are crazy and I don't approve of their ideology, but they also do not dehumanize large swaths of the population.

> they also do not dehumanize large swaths of the population

They dehumanize and kill everyone equally.

I think the West (US especially) has a great system of government figured out, and I wouldn't try to say any group attempting to break that is better than another. It's not disingenuous to say that both are authoritarians who kill millions.

Re: Peter Thiel's Apocalyptic Worldview Is a Dangerous Fantasy

#147

Post by cbb330 »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #138
cbb330 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but that take is complete garbage. Wanting to “collectively figure out how to take away the microphone” from rich people you dislike isn’t a brave stance against inequality, it’s straight-up authoritarian censorship based on net worth. In a free society, people choose who gets attention. If you don’t like Thiel, out-argue him or ignore him, but don’t fantasize about silencing citizens because they’re successfu…

> “collectively figure out how to take away the microphone” Taking away the microphone is not censorship. We're not talking about taking away Thiel's right to speech, we're talking about taking away undue amplification of Thiel's speech. You are allowed to stand on a soapbox and shout your politics. But if you amplify your speech on that soapbox you're given a little bit of slack because of "free speech" but then are…

The soapbox-vs-megaphone analogy falls apart fast.

Name me one serious, intellectually honest critic of Thiel—say, Malcolm Harris, Evgeny Morozov, Shoshana Zuboff, Mariana Mazzucato, or even random Substackers with 100k+ followers who’s struggling to be heard because Thiel bought all the megaphones.

They all have huge platforms, book deals, TED-level reach, or blue-check amplification. The “undue amplification” crowd never points to a single silenced dissident; they just dislike that Thiel’s ideas are winning in the marketplace anyway.

If every prominent counter-voice already has a bigger megaphone than 99.9 % of humanity ever will, the complaint isn’t about access it’s that voters and readers keep choosing the “wrong” rich guy.

Re: Peter Thiel's Apocalyptic Worldview Is a Dangerous Fantasy

#150

Post by AlexandrB »

Centigonal wrote: post #93
cbb330 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but that take is complete garbage. Wanting to “collectively figure out how to take away the microphone” from rich people you dislike isn’t a brave stance against inequality, it’s straight-up authoritarian censorship based on net worth. In a free society, people choose who gets attention. If you don’t like Thiel, out-argue him or ignore him, but don’t fantasize about silencing citizens because they’re successfu…

Today, the super-wealthy have a megaphone for their worldview that is orders of magnitude more effective than anything anyone else has got. It's not just Thiel: Bezos, Soros, Musk, Paul Singer, and others all are or have been promulgating their worldviews at a scale formerly reserved for nation-states. If unchecked, this inequity will bring us to a world not dissimilar to Byzantine Europe, where the "word of god," as…

You're not wrong, but the same megaphone applies to the average Joe. In the early 1990s, unless you were a celebrity or politician, your ideas could not spread beyond the confines of the next city council meeting - at best. Now an average person has far more reach. Yes there's often a cacophony of other information that will drown you out, but it's hardly worse than the previous situation where all media was in the hands of very few, often very wealthy, individuals.
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